Are you a web designer looking to fill your pipeline with web design clients?
If so, I published this post to share some sales tips on how to push past the first “no”, provide value first, and follow-up with your prospects.
Choose what businesses to pursue
Most web development agencies pursue one of three types of clients.
- Some web agencies look for businesses that already have website, but the website could be improved.
- Other agencies look for businesses with low-code website that the owner put together on Google Sites, GoDaddy, or Wix.
- Still others look for businesses that don’t have a website at all.
In many cases, the best clients are those who have already invested in a website. They already see the value in a quality website – that’s why they already have one – so they’re open to working with a better developer to improve their site. Clients who went the do-it-yourself route are apt to continue with the do-it-yourself approach.
Marty Dickinson, author of Lions Always Win, says:
“If someone called me saying they didn’t have a website yet, I would tell them to have a friend make their website for free first and then come back to me in six months when they realized a website is an important business expense not to be nickeled and dimed.”
Scrape leads for local business websites
There are a few ways to pull leads for local business websites. (If you know of any others I should add, please email me.)
- Leads Gorilla: Leads Gorilla is promising, but plagued by reports of numerous upsells and unresponsive customer service. This solution requires the least programming knowledge of all three options.
- D7 Lead Finder: D7 Lead Finder is another tool to help you source leads for your agency. Unfortunately, many in sales find D7 too inefficient for the time it takes to use.
- Outscraper: Outscraper lets you scrape data from Google Maps for $0.002 per business listing. That’s $2 per 1,000 listings. You will almost certainly find 10 prospective clients in this list that don’t have websites.
- Write your own bot: SEO consultant Dalton Luka has an insane free list of nearly 4,000 Google Business Profile categories. You can write a bot to scrape Google Business Profile data in every Google business category. Program the bot to search for “city” + “keyword”, then look for either no website, Google Sites or Go Daddy Websites on each profile’s website URL. If the answer = true, then the bot should add the Google Business Profile link, website link (if any), and phone number to a spreadsheet. You can then use this spreadsheet to contact business without a website or with a low-code website.
- Scrape Whois: You can scrape Whois registration data to find contact information for new businesses that will soon need a website.
Push past the first “no”
You have to assume that a sales prospect will resist you. After all, they may have heard from web developers every week for years!
Pait Digital owner Payton Clark Smith shares four reasons people say no:
- Everyone is trained to say “no” to salespeople.
- Your prospects just don’t trust you yet.
- You might come across as salesy, and people hate salesy salespeople.
- People always expect that a salesperson is self-interested rather than having the prospects’ interests at heart.
Provide value first
When you reach out to a website client prospect, create a Loom video where you introduce yourself, show the prospect their website, and walk through all the changes you recommend. Importantly, you should discuss the benefits that should come out of making each change.
You can show your prospects their website, their calls-to-action, their Google ranking, their reviews, and more. Show them how to increase the effectiveness on their website and online presence.
Through your custom Loom videos, you’ll be able to provide a lot of value so your prospects can get to know you.
(As of 2022, Loom is $96/year when paid annually, or $10/month when paid month-to-month.)
Follow up
If you don’t follow up on this video, you probably won’t get any response.
Use your Loom video as your ticket in the door to a low-stress conversation with this prospect.
Use Loom to see how much of the video they watched. Give the business owner a call 2 days later. Know their business owner’s name and title.
This isn’t a cold call. If the owner watched your video, it will be easier for them to have a conversation with you.
If a secretary tries to screen your call, tell them: “It’s ok, this is just about a video that I sent Jane 2 days ago. She’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. I can hold.”
Talk to the business owner
When you talk to the business owner or decision maker, if they say “no”, acknowledge what they’re saying. Then work back to their pain points. Show them you understand their concerns and you have a solution.
I really like the book New Sales. Simplified. by Mike Weinberg. Mike goes deep into how to make your “sales target” a partner in the deal-making process. To summarize his book in a sentence: Instead of looking at your pitch as a me-vs-prospect situation, sit next to your prospect instead of across the table, and discuss the business “problem” and “solution” like a partner who’s on their team helping them solve an important issue in their business.
Conclusion
Once you have laid the groundwork to get clients for your web development agency, send out 10 videos a day for 90 days to get a pipeline full of web design clients.
